


Under Your Armour

by sesquipedalianMarquis



Series: The Meraad Chronicles [11]
Category: Dragon Age (Tabletop RPG), Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Antiva, F/M, Fluff, Makeup, Men wearing makeup, One Shot, POV Third Person, Self-Indulgent, Short, Sweet, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Vashoth, at least one character mentioned is secretly ben-hassrath, destroy gender norms, indulgence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-10-08 00:38:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17376203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sesquipedalianMarquis/pseuds/sesquipedalianMarquis
Summary: Lady Hidalga wears her own kind of armour. She's happy to share.





	Under Your Armour

She’s putting on her khol, her lipstick, the shimmery powder that makes her skin glow in the summer sun. It’s like watching fighters put on their armour and brace for battle, in a way. Her movements are sure, practised, and her posture changes as she goes, more poised and posed and refined.

“You like watching me,” she says as she’s slipping into her underclothes.  
“Yes.” It’s not a question, but maybe she’s leading somewhere.  
“Like the way it makes me look?” There’s a wink, a curled smile, practised and poised. Like Irene’s. It’s not a smile for him – it’s a statement of power, but that doesn’t make it any less beautiful.  
“It makes you look more dangerous. Like when I put on armour.” The comparison doesn’t fall flat. Her smile widens.  
“More like a weapon, I’d say. The right amount of pretty smile cuts deeper than a knife in my circles.”  
“I don’t doubt you could carve out someone’s ribs with a smile.”  
“Ah, you flatter me,” she laughs, and drifts to the door to get one of the maidservants, to help her dress, do her hair. The women chat softly, and Meraad rests in the pillows and observes the foreign dance of their preparation.

She gives him a kiss before she leaves. Not the passionate kisses they’ve been trading, just a chaste touch of her lips to his. Doesn’t drag him down by the neck, but gently leads him with a hand on his cheek.  
Her lipstick is on his mouth when he looks in the mirror, plum like a bruise. It matches the marks on his neck, on his shoulders. 

It takes her a few hours to return. Meraad shaves, bathes and whiles away the noon on the balcony, basking in the sun. Occasionally, one of the servants shows up to ask if they can get him anything. It’s awkward every time, at the very least for him, if not for both of them. Then again, they may be used to having a guest of the house around. Maybe they’re also making sure the big qunari mercenary is behaving himself in a house full of expensive and nice things. He would be, if he was in their place. They don’t inform him that she’s back when she returns; he’s almost dozing on the balcony when she steps out, still in all her finery.  
“Having a nice nap?”  
He shakes himself awake, props himself up on his elbow, nods respectfully in greeting.  
“My lady.”  
“Meraad.” She places one of her hands, soft and well-manicured and dripping with golden rings, on his cheek. “Hmm, you shaved.”  
He turns his head to kiss her palm, and she taps his bottom lip with her thumb.  
“Celeste.”  
Her smile goes a bit softer, and he tips his head up when she leans down and gives him a kiss, the gentle and formal kind again. The way her eyes flutter open when she draws back is fascinating, with the golden shimmer on her lids and the dark lines around her eyes. She laughs softly.  
“I’ve got my lipstick on you again.”  
He raises an eyebrow.  
“Does it suit me?”  
She contemplates that for a moment, slides her hand under his chin and turns his face to inspect.  
“No. Plum isn’t your colour.” A thought catches her attention, a smile spreads, conspiratorial, mischievous. “I do have a nice black that would look good. Have you worn lipstick before?”  
Has he? “I don’t know if vitaar counts. There are styles of it that go on the lips as well. I’ve worn that.”  
“Ah, but that’s for battle. Or ceremonial, right?” She looks for confirmation, and he nods. “Well, it’s not the same, so I won’t count it. It would please me to put some lipstick on you. Or more, if you’ll let me.”  
There’s not really a point to this that he can see. But it would please her.  
“Sure,” he shrugs. “If you want.”

There are so many tins and things. Maybe too many. It’s like an alchemist’s lab, except this stuff isn’t going to spontaneously combust.  
Probably.  
She ferrets out the little containers she wants, a whole handful of stuff, with glittery powders and dark powders and other substances Meraad can’t place. She asks for his hands, first, and paints his claws – his thumbs and the first two on each hand neatly trimmed, the remaining four long and wicked-looking – in an unrelieved black, all shiny. He watches her soft, clever hands move over his scarred, callused ones.  
“Don’t move your hands a while,” she instructs and pulls out a fluffy brush-thing.

“Hold still, or I’ll poke you in the eye with this.”  
“It’s hard to hold still when you’re almost poking me in the eye with a weird paintbrush.”  
“I’ll stop if you want me to.”  
Heavy sigh.  
“No, go on. I’ll be good.”

“Ow!”  
“Sorry, sorry. You were twitching.”  
“I was twitching because you’re poking me in the eyes, Celeste.”  
“Sorry. Almost done with this.”  
“I better look stunning. How do you do this every other day?”  
“Oh, you know. We deal.”

The lipstick is last. It’s a similar shade of black to the black she put on his claws. And then she caps it, stands and smiles.  
“There you go. All fancied up. I don’t think you’d pass for an Antivan lady yet, but we can work on that.”  
He laughs and follows her to the full-length mirror. He’s used to the view of himself in her expensive silky robes by now, but the makeup is new. It doesn’t make him pretty, because he’s not a pretty man by any means, doesn’t have a face like Reth or Kasaanda. But it is kind of striking, the black shape of his mouth, the dark lines following his eyes. She uses warm colours for herself, blush and gold and rose and red, but she put colder ones on him, silvers and blues on his eyelids. There’s a shimmer to his skin now, silvery on the grey.  
“So, what do you think? You can say you don’t like it, by the way, this isn’t a test.”  
He considers his reflection for a moment longer.  
“I don’t know. I look like a shinier version of me.”  
“That’s usually the point of it, yes.” She stands beside him, looks at him in the glass of the mirror. “Not bad, though?”  
“Nah. Not that different from vitaar, except it doesn’t, y’know, become like metal when it dries.”  
Her hand finds his bicep.  
“I like the way it brings out your lips. It makes you look more kissable.”  
“You’ll spend half an hour prettying me up just to make a mess of it again?” He grins down at her, not in the mirror now, slides his arm around her waist, pulls her in.  
“Well, you get to make a mess of me. It’s only fair.” Her grin echoes his, plum-dark lips and glitter-framed eyes.  
“Who am I to argue that?” He leans down for a kiss, and they ruin their lipstick within minutes.

 

“Maybe I will take you out tomorrow,” she muses. Her hair is tousled, the sheets tangled around her legs, the remains of her makeup smudged. Her armour stripped away. She looks better this way, unguarded. There’s makeup on her neck, her thighs, like kiss-marks except that these will wipe away.  
“If it pleases my lady.” Take him out where?  
“Ah, hear that! You’re learning court manners fast. Don’t worry, I won’t take you to a function or such, nothing like that. But you’ve been cooped up here a few days, while I swan off to deal with my business. So I’ll go to the markets, and for a little stroll along the waterfront, maybe along the harbour. You’ll be my bodyguard. I’m not seen in the company of lovers, but I might just hire someone to defend me from any danger, no? I’ll even pay you. Five silver for every bell that you keep me safe outside, what do you say?” She seems delighted at the idea. And, well, people do hire security. Especially in Antiva. It’s stranger to think she hasn’t been travelling around with guards galore all this while.  
“A decent rate. I’ll guard you from any harm.”  
“And maybe carry my parasol,” she muses. “I should give you a shield and a shorter sword for the job. The longsword is terrifying, but the streets of Rialto are too narrow.”  
“I’m out of practise with shields,” he warns. Sure, he has the training, but he’s been using two-handers for years.  
“Oh, Meraad.” There is laughter in her voice. “You’re seven foot tall, with a broken nose and a missing horn! Weapons are for show. No-one will so much as look my way wrong with you looming behind me. I’m untouchable.”  
“Untouchable, huh?” He reaches over, brushes a strand of her hair from her face. His claws are still painted black. “Ah. Should I remove the polish, if we’re to go out tomorrow?”  
She leans her head into his palm, like a cat.  
“Leave it on. It looks good.”  
Well. It does. He leaves it on.


End file.
